


dominus

by thedevilchicken



Category: Original Work
Genre: Anal Sex, Ancient Rome, Butt Plugs, Collars, Comeplay, Deepthroating, Dominance, Explicit Sexual Content, Extremely Dubious Consent, Extremely dubious historical accuracy, Gladiators, Humiliation, M/M, Master/Slave, Older Man/Younger Man, Ownership, Piercings, Rape/Non-con Elements, Sex Toys, Sex Toys Under Clothing, Shame, victim is aroused
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-18
Updated: 2019-11-18
Packaged: 2021-02-12 21:20:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21483007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: Xerxes is a gladiator; he's a first-rate retiarius who's lived much longer than his expectations.His first three masters were a parade of fucking idiots. His newest, Lucius Avarius, is far from that. He's rich, and powerful, and knows precisely what he wants.Xerxes likes to think he doesn't like him. But he'll still do everything he says.
Relationships: Original Male Character/Original Male Character, Younger Ancient Roman Patrician/Older Gladiator He Bought
Comments: 6
Kudos: 274
Collections: Naughty List 2019





	dominus

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sheeon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheeon/gifts).

They call him Xerxes because his first dominus, the fucking idiot, said he looked Persian round the edges. He's not - he's from Thrace or maybe somewhere north of that, no idea of the specifics except he remembers tall trees and broad lakes and snow in the air in winter. He was young when he was taken, though, maybe just his ninth or tenth year in the world, so who knows. He doesn't. 

"Xerxes."

He tenses. He moves, feeling the long chain attached to the collar at his neck shift against his bare back and twist over his hip as he turns to the man who's just spoken. The chain's thick enough that he feels its weight pulling the collar snug against his throat but not so thick he couldn't free himself if he wished to. He's the strongest man in the ludus, and he has been for many years. 

Lucius Avarius is standing in the bathhouse doorway. He's tall - not as tall as Xerxes is but few men are. He's a blue-eyed blonde where Xerxes is dark, short-haired where Xerxes' hair is long, clean-shaven where Xerxes' beard hands almost to his chest in two gold-beaded braids. The beads are real gold, he thinks, because Avarius gave them to him; he braided them in himself, with Xerxes kneeling on the floor between his thighs. The small rings in his ears are gold, too, the ones he takes out when he fights so they won't tear out. 

Pain is usual, normal, a part of Xerxes' daily life, but he remembers the sting of it, the trickle of blood, Avarius' fingers on his skin. He brought a new ring every week for six weeks. Xerxes wishes he couldn't remember the disappointment he felt when new rings stopped coming, but it's been months now. This is, he thinks, just how Avarius wishes him to look. 

The far end of his chain is hanging on a hook just inside the door. As Avarius looks at him, as he lets his gaze wander over him, he reaches for it; its location is familiar enough that he doesn't need to look. He wraps it twice around his left wrist then pulls it taut across the room, so the collar turns at Xerxes' neck and the chain comes to the front. He remembers the day they put the collar on him, holding his beard and hair out fo the way but the weld still singed his hair. The rounded ring of metal has a nice bright shine to it, and a ring that they attach the chain to when his master comes to visit. And he remembers that first visit, the same afternoon, in the lanista's villa. 

Avarius is his fourth dominus; the lanista who owns the ludus was his third, who bought him from a less successful lanista, who bought him from the trader who'd been keeping him to water his horses. Avarius owns him. He pays for his room and board and upkeep, because he's rich and it pleases him. He's one of the richest men in Rome and he's not even thirty, and Xerxes has been a slave for thirty years at least. There's grey in Xerxes' hair. Avarius makes him feel old, sometimes, amongst other things. 

Avarius is his fourth dominus, and he's not a fucking idiot like all the rest have been. The first time they met, in the lanista's villa, Xerxes was ushered in with his new collar at his neck and the long chain attached to it all coiled up in his hands. His long hair was loose and his skin faintly oiled, feet bare, and his subligaria neatly tucked in place, and there was Avarius on the couch with a cup of wine. He wasn't drunk, though, and Xerxes could see that. His eyes were sharp. 

"Come here," Avarius said, and Xerxes did as he was told, bare feet slapping at the tiled floor. 

"Kneel," Avarius said, so Xerxes did that, too. He knelt on the tiles by the couch, and he knew better than to look at him, in his fine clothes, but he did so anyway. Avarius smiled at him archly. 

"Hold up the chain," he said, so Xerxes held it out to him, with a soft rattle of its links as one end swayed against his bare chest. 

"Ask me to take it from you."

"Will you take it?"

"Call me _dominus_."

"Will you take it, dominus?"

Avarius took the chain. "I will," he said, then he passed the chain around his back, around his waist, and pulled on it, slowly, easing Xerxes closer to him. He pulled his tunic up and tucked the hem of it over his belt; he was bare underneath, and Xerxes quickly understood: Avarius had no need of a gladiator. A few cursory strokes and he was hard, thick and long and moist at the tip. He could smell him, a clean kind of musk, and Xerxes felt his own cock stir entirely against his will. 

"Do you want it?" Avarius asked. 

"Yes, dominus." 

"Tell me what you want."

Xerxes' gaze flickered up to Avarius' face, to his blue eyes made dark in the bright afternoon sun by his quite obvious desire. Then he looked back down to Avarius' cock, jutting thick and hard from the rough curls by its base. 

"I want to suck your cock, dominus," Xerxes told him, as his own cock gave a twitch. 

Avarius leaned back. "Then by all means," he said, and he spread his arms out wide. 

Xerxes had sucked men's cocks before. Roman men, ashamed of themselves, paying the lanista for furtive fumbles in half-lit rooms where they could almost pretend it wasn't happening. Avarius was different, though, surer, like he didn't care who knew and the likelihood was he didn't - maybe his money or his name protected him from that. The others had liked him to suck them then fuck them, bent over couches or sprawled on the floor, begging him, trying not to moan. Avarius... Xerxes could see he knew what he wanted. And Xerxes leaned in closer, leaned low, licked his lips, and then sucked the flushed head of Avarius' cock into his mouth. He licked the moisture from the tip in one slow swirl, then took him deeper. 

Where the others had been frantic, blushing, moaning, awkward, almost glad when it was done, Avarius was still and quiet except for the sound of his laboured breath. Xerxes sucked him, his hands gripping the edge of the couch at either side of his bare thighs, an ache in his jaw and down inside his balls. He'd never really _wanted_ it before, he thought; all the men and women he'd had or who'd had him had just been one more of his duties as a slave there in the ludus. This, though - his chest felt tight and his face felt warm and Avarius' cock felt thick and heavy on his tongue and he took more, and took more, the chain at his neck hanging down between his thighs but that wasn't even nearly enough pressure. 

Then Avarius moved. He stood. And with his fingers tangled in Xerxes' hair, he shoved his cock in to the root. Xerxes gagged, he spluttered, his fingers closed on Avarius' bare calves, but Avarius held him there. He pushed his big cock into Xerxes' throat and told him, "Breathe. Just relax and take it or you're going to choke." 

Xerxes' hands left Avarius calves. His eyes watered, but he stilled. He breathed. His throat felt raw and his cock throbbed and slowly, Avarius began to fuck him. He let him, hot-faced with the lust and the shame of it, not that he'd ever thought he'd be the one that felt that. And when Avarius came, when he pushed in deep and came with a low groan and fingers tightened in his hair, Xerxes swallowed. It hurt, but he swallowed. Then Avarius withdrew, and sat down, with his tunic still tucked up to expose him. He didn't seem to feel a need to cover up; he just sat there with his legs spread wide, his cock starting to soften as he gave his balls a languid squeeze. Xerxes sat back on his heels and tried to catch his breath, though it felt like a dozen broken knife tips in his throat. 

"You were expensive," Avarius told him, and gave his chain a little tug. "But I have high hopes you'll prove you're worth it."

Then he rose and he patted Xerxes' cheek, tossed the chain onto the couch and walked away. He left Xerxes kneeling there, still as hard as he'd ever been in his life before. Avarius had barely touched him. He didn't understand this reaction at all. 

On the day of his second visit, Avarius sent two brusque male slaves to the bathhouse to prepare him. They scrubbed his skin clean of ludus dirt till it felt raw and tender to the touch, brushed his hair then pulled it back into a long, neat braid, then had him bend over the massage bench. He watched them oil a small stone plug and felt his face burn when he understood its use. One held his cheeks apart while the other pushed the shiny polished stone against his hole. It felt cool, and strange; he felt it push inside then his hole pull tight around the narrow stem before its flared base. One slave gave the base a solid tap and Xerxes felt a thrill from it straight through his balls to the tip of his cock. Then they dressed him in a fine blue tunic, the sort he'd never had before or ever thought he would. They put him in a pair of soft leather-strapped sandals, and they took him to the villa. In every step, he felt the thing inside him. 

The lanista was hosting a party, and Xerxes' dominus was his honoured guest. While other men from the ludus wielded swords in the atrium for gasping spectators, while others removed their subligaria and fucked this pretty serving girl or that boy from the stables, Xerxes was taken to another room, more private than the others. There Avarius lay on a couch, one of four arranged around a low table covered up in food and wine. He had Xerxes sit down beside him, in the space left by his feet, and watched his expression as he did so closely. Sitting pushed the plug in just a little deeper; Xerxes blushed hotly as he gave his dominus a sideways glance, and Avarius gave him a pleased and knowing smile. 

He was treated to good wine and good food as he sat there, with the chain suspended from the collar at his neck and sitting in Avarius' lap. He could hear the other gladiators fight and fuck, the groans of effort different only in the fact they were accompanied by clashing swords or skin slapping skin. Avarius' friends, one male and two female, seemed oblivious to everything happening outside their door. They talked, and Xerxes sat still. And eventually, the friends excused themselves to leave. Avarius remained, and turned his attention to him. 

Avarius slipped one hand beneath the hem of Xerxes' blue tunic, the one he'd evidently sent for him to wear. His hand brushed Xerxes' thigh and he parted his knees and then Avarius' fingers brushed his cock. His hand went down; he gave his balls a slow firm squeeze, like testing fucking fruit, and Xerxes couldn't even seem him do it as the tunic blocked his view. 

"Do you like your gift?" Avarius asked, with a gesture of his free hand to the tunic. 

"Yes, dominus," Xerxes replied, though honestly he wasn't sure he meant it. 

Avarius gave another squeeze then slipped his fingers back to push insistently at the smooth skin behind his balls.

"And do you like your _other_ gift?"

Xerxes felt his cheeks flush hot again. He shifted against the couch and felt the stone shifting inside him, warmed now by his body heat. He squeezed around it, against his will, and felt his cock start to stiffen. 

"Yes, dominus," he replied, though his voice felt thick. This time, he knew he meant it. 

"I have another one for you," Avarius said, and he pulled it out from underneath the cushion on the couch where he'd been leaning. It was thicker and longer, just with the same narrow stem and wider base to keep it in place inside him, and Xerxes looked down to see the precome from his aching cock soak a damp spot in his tented tunic. 

"I want to see you put it in," Avarius told him, then took his wrist and set it on his palm. "On your knees on the floor. Take your time."

Xerxes knelt. He felt the same kind of anxious, excited flutter in him as when he entered the arena, or else left it afterwards, as he bent down over the table and pulled his tunic up to bare his arse. Then he dipped the thick stone plug into the nearest pot of oil. 

"Dominus?" he said, as he held it up, oil dripping down his fingers almost like arena blood. 

"Of course," Avarius replied, and Xerxes felt fingers trailing down his lower back, between his cheeks, and then Avarius eased his first plug out. He put it on the table then sat back again and Xerxes felt his balls tug tight; he reached the plug back and ran its oily tip against his crack, then pressed it up against his hole. Perhaps he was the physically stronger of the two of them, though Avarius' frame did not seem weak. Perhaps he was the larger and the taller, perhaps he could have killed him with the chain he held, but he let it bind him. He pushed the stone inside himself and let it take his breath away. He wanted Avarius to watch, at least as much as he wished he'd leave that place and never return. And then he pushed it in.

Avarius gave the plug's wide base a tap and Xerxes took a sharp breath in. His fingertips rubbed the oiled rim of Xerxes' hole where it was stretched around the plug's stone stem. Then he slipped from the couch onto the tiled floor and he pressed his chest up tight to Xerxes' back. He ran one hand beneath the front of Xerxes' tunic. He wrapped that hand around his cock and with a shudder and a moan, that was all it took for Xerxes to come. 

"You'll wear the small one every day," Avarius told him, his low voice breathy by his ear. "You'll practice with the larger one perhaps once or twice a week. If you require more oil, send word." 

And then he set the chain down on the table, wiped the come from his hand onto the front of Xerxes' tunic, and then left him there to catch his breath. But Xerxes knew, at least, he'd felt his master's cock pushing hard against his back. 

Now, every day since, he's worn Avarius' stone underneath his subligaria. He's worn it in his room, in the ludus, when he fights and wins in the arena, and at night he pushes at the base as he fists his cock. His master has ordered that no one visit him to help him find release, so he does it for himself. He should resent him for that. He should want the physical reward his victories deserve, but he no longer does. He hates that when he comes, he thinks of the man who owns him. 

The third time he visited, there was no advance notice. Avarius arrived on horseback from his likely lavish Roman villa and he joined the lanista on his balcony for wine as they watched the men train below. Xerxes could almost feel his eyes on him, and no one else. He could definitely feel his small stone toy in him. And if it had been the arena and not the dusty ludus, he'd have killed his opponent just to see how his dominus might react to that. Perhaps he'd have been proud. 

After training, the men were sent straight to their rooms without so much as time to wash. Xerxes sat in his and waited, damp with sweat from exertion and sun, ludus dust on his cooling skin, and then Avarius arrived. The lanista unlocked the door. Avarius entered. He kept the key. The lanista left again and Xerxes watched Avarius' eyes move over this room he'd bought and paid for, much like its current occupant. 

"This is disgusting," he said, with an accompanying grimace. "Unacceptable. I'll speak with the lanista." 

Xerxes shrugged. "It's better than the old room," he replied. 

"I know you mean that as a comfort," Avarius said, "but it's very much not." He dusted off the chair with one hand then sat himself down. He rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand, and he looked at him. 

"Undress," he said, so he did, and Avarius leaned back to watch. 

Xerxes undressed. He removed his sandals and tossed them to the floor, removed his subligaria and tossed it after them, and stood there naked with his long hair braided down his back and the shiny collar still around his neck, its rounded edge resting lightly at his collarbones. Avarius watched him, cast his appraising gaze over him, over corded muscle over bone beneath thick scars. Xerxes must be forty now if he's a day, and he wears the marks that go with twenty years a fighter. 

"Turn away and kneel," Avarius said, so Xerxes knelt. "Lean forward, on your hands," he said, so Xerxes did. He heard Avarius move, heard him step across the room, heard him kneel behind him. He shivered as Avarius' hands skimmed the curve of his arse then plucked the stone out of him with a low, pleased chuckle, like he was pleased to find it there. 

He'd brought oil with him, Xerxes realised, when Avarius dipped his fingers into the pot he'd set down on the floor beside them. He drizzled it between his cheeks, as if dressing a fucking salad, then ran his fingers down there after it. He rubbed at Xerxes' already marginally stretched-out hole then breached him with his first two fingers, deep and sudden. Xerxes clenched involuntarily around them. Maybe it didn't exactly feel good, but that didn't stop his cock from stiffening, and when Avarius withdrew his fingers, he replaced them with his cock. 

He felt his cockhead rest there slick and blunt against his hole. He felt him push it in, in stages, till Xerxes' arse was full of him. He'd been fucked before, more than once, but by furtive men who'd been ashamed of it; Avarius gave a vocal sigh of pleasure and squeezed tight at Xerxes' waist. He rocked his hips and moved in him, the friction of it making Xerxes shudder. And the rhythm of it built, slow and steady, utterly controlled, until the slap of skin to skin was audible over their breath with every pounding thrust. 

Avarius groaned out loud, completely uninhibited, as he spread Xerxes' cheeks and pushed in deep and spilled his seed inside him. When he pulled out, quickly, Xerxes felt his come begin to trickle from his hole, and Avarius cursed and ran his fingers through it, rubbed it from his balls and sighed. He blocked Xerxes' hole with his thumb and told him, "Stay still," then he felt him push the chilly stone plug back in again before much more could escape him. 

He expected him to leave. He expected him to take the key and leave the room and lock him in and not come back for days, but when he stood he didn't leave. He sat back down in the chair across the room with his tunic dropped back into place. He told Xerxes to turn to him and stroke himself so he could watch. And when he was done, all dirty and fucking dishevelled with an ache in his ageing knees from the hard-packed earth floor, Avarius had him sit on his hay-stuffed mattress and then called for something to eat and drink. 

For all he'd called the place disgusting, Lucius Avarius stayed the night. He pulled out the plug and he fucked him again then pushed it back inside him. Then, the next morning, before he left, he lay down on Xerxes' mattress and had him sit astride his hips. He didn't do a thing to help, he just had Xerxes shove his cock into his arse and ride him till he came. 

Xerxes had never had so much come in him. And, when Avarius was gone, he knelt on his thin mattress on the floor and rubbed the sore rim of his come-slicked hole with his fingertips. He fucked himself with his fingers till he came, imagining his master's cock. 

It's been more than a year now since Avarius bought him. He's fought in six festivals and won them all and at each one, he's searched the crowd for his master's face. He's never seen him there. Honestly, he wonders how he even knew to buy him if he hadn't seen him fight. 

It's been more than a year now and Xerxes' room now has a tiled floor, and a bed with a sturdy wooden frame that lifts his mattress up above it. He doesn't sleep on that, though; he pulls the mattress down onto the floor and sleeps there so it doesn't hurt his still unaccustomed back. He has a bed, and his blue tunic, gold beads in his hair and gold rings in his ears, and the finest net and trident with which to kill a man that Roman coin can buy. When he's injured, a fine Greek physician visits. He's probably the best kept gladiator in all the fucking empire, but he didn't ask for this at all. 

He stands naked in the bathhouse and his dominus comes closer. His dominus is tall and fine, and rich and influential. He dabbles in politics. He's a patron of the arts, and he looks like a fucking statue of Apollo. The serving girls tell him his dominus is wanted and admired, but Xerxes doesn't want him. At least only as much as his body does. 

"On your knees, Xerxes," Avarius tells him, so he kneels down on the bathhouse floor and watches him approach. He watches him throw the chain down in between Xerxes' knees and then untie the belt that's around his waist. He watches him take off his tunic, and he's naked underneath. His cock's already half hard, and Xerxes swallows as he looks at it. Will he want to fuck his throat today or push him down and have his arse? Not that it matters, he thinks, because it's really all the same, but then Avarius detours to the bench for a pot of oil. His arse, then, hard and deep until he's bruised his rim, so Xerxes turns and leans and goes down on his forearms, ready, knees spread wide, with his arse up in the air. He should feel humiliated. He supposes, underneath, he might. 

Avarius removes Xerxes' plug and spreads his cheeks to expose his hole. He blows on it, cool air in the faintly steamy room making the muscle clench and flutter, then he runs his oiled fingers over it. Xerxes he asked himself why him on more than one occasion; Avaris could buy himself a slave to keep at home, close by, or coerce some bright young poet into offering his arsehole, or good men with good names who might like to suck his cock. He doesn't need a forty-something retiarius with one shoulder so scarred he can't get his arm above his head most days and a scar from a spear tip by one eye that left him halfway blind in it. So maybe all he wants is a tame barbarian, though Xerxes barely knows a word of the language or the place that he was born to, let alone where it might have been. Maybe he wants a man who's bigger than every other man he's ever met, so he can put him on his knees. 

Avarius doesn't waste time; he slicks his cock then pushes into him. He rolls his hips till he's seated deep. 

"Tell me how it feels," he says. "Do you like it, Xerxes?"

He doesn't. He does. Avarius moves in him and Xerxes groans. When Avarius reaches one hand forward and pinches sharply at one nipple, hard, Xerxes' groans turn louder. When he slips that hand down low between his thighs and squeezes tight at the tip of his cock, Xerxes' knees feel weak. He almost comes. 

"It hurts, dominus," he says, voice strained and thick. "Don't stop." He swallows. He gasps. "Oh, fuck. Just do it harder." And Avarius is, as it happens, only too happy to oblige. 

His master tugs on his collar as he fucks him. But Xerxes knows he doesn't need it. The worst part is, he knows he wouldn't leave him if he could. 

And perhaps, he thinks, that's why he chose him.


End file.
